“There’s no shortage of financial yardsticks to show Apple’s remarkable performance lately,” Rolfe Winkler reports for The Wall Street Journal. “One example: Despite being the largest S&P 500 company by market value, Apple’s 2011 sales growth outpaced all other index constituents, excluding acquisitions.”

“Yet Apple has another performance measure that few appreciate, its judicious use of capital employed,” Winkler reports. “To boost profits, most companies have to invest more capital. Yet even as Apple increased operating income 84% in the year ending September 2011, capital employed fell.”

Winkler reports, “Moreover, thanks to the efficiency with which Apple manages much of its balance sheet, the capital invested in its business is actually negative. In other words, Apple gets paid for its products faster than it pays to make them.”

Read more in the full article here.

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